


Corrupted But Not Broken

by GalaxyKitty



Series: Danti Cuteness [11]
Category: Danti - Fandom
Genre: Anti gets hurt again, Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, gotta give the virus a virus, lots of bed rest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-09-05 07:17:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16806001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalaxyKitty/pseuds/GalaxyKitty
Summary: "Can you do one where, right as Anti touches an electronic he wants to mess with, a power-surge happens and it really hurts him, so Dark and Henrik or Dr. Iplier have to take care of him for a few days, but Anti really hates that and tries to go somewhere else to recover and then... uh..... oops."-phonenixA cute oneshot from a wonderful request :3





	Corrupted But Not Broken

**Author's Note:**

> Hmmm... so I know what the request was asking but I think I wrote something a bit different than what we both were going for xD haha, it was an odd one but still fun!
> 
> Didn't realize it's been so long since this was requested asfdghfds
> 
> Note- I have adopted Edward to be Dr. Iplier's first name

Anti’s abilities were always a strange thing to think about. No one truly knew the extent of his skills, nor did they know exactly what he could do either. He has stumbled across a few skills by accident, sometimes goofing off and trying to prank one of the egos only to discover a new trick. One of the abilities he was most proud of, though, was his talent with electronics. At first he thought it could only work with computers and phones and things of the like, and he’s had a lot of practice with those when he screwed around with Jack’s videos. Sometimes he would hide inside the coding of the computer itself, messing with it from within, and he’s caught Dark off guard a few times when he would hide on the older ego’s computer and surprise him.

The glitchy ego was startled when he accidentally made the microwave spark, causing the popcorn he was making to come out burnt, but he was happy with the new discovery. He started testing it out with other electronics, finding that as long as it was related to electricity or technological currents, he had a type of influence over it. He was quite happy when he spooked the other egos by messing with the lights of the house.

It was easiest to control when he was touching the object that he wanted to affect. Although he has been able to change things without touching it, he hasn’t been able to fully understand that himself, and most of the time it only happened when he was angry or emotional and his energy went out of hand. He was quite proud of himself when it came to missions, though. A lot of facilities the egos had to deal with had complicated security measures and locked up computers, something that professional hackers would be needed for to deal with, but Anti could get through them in a matter of seconds. He never showed it, always keeping his intimidating and mischievous demeanor about him, but he always felt a swell of pride and happiness whenever someone mentioned how he could help in a mission or how he was important for a plan of theirs. He liked the feeling of being important. _Needed_.

So he didn’t hesitate when Dark came up to him with a new mission, saying that he’d join them and grinned at the idea.

It was him, Dark, Wilford, and Google who were going, as they usually stayed with their own “family” and didn’t ask the other group to join them unless it was important. Due to Anti’s relationship with Dark, though, it wasn’t uncommon for him to join Mark’s egos for these jobs. It was another thing he didn’t admit that he enjoyed; he liked that he was asked to join them even though he wasn’t part of their ego group. He was needed.

The day of the mission arrived and the four of them left after sundown, hiding in the darkness as they approached the facility they were to break into. They didn’t bother worrying with the doors, seeing as two of them had a type of teleportation and Dark had his weird shadow travel thing. The building was large and oddly quiet, though Google announced that there weren’t any signals coming from video cameras so they weren’t being watched. It would be better for them to split up, so they went two separate ways, Wilford going with Googs while Dark went with Anti, and either Googs or Anti could hack into the computer they were looking for once one of them found it.

It was Dark and Anti who arrived to it first and the glitchy ego grinned as he walked up to the computer and sat on the desk.

“Alright, now we can get this over with and we can get back to making dinner.” Anti smirked and put his hand on the computer, head turning towards the monitor as it flashed to life after breaking through the password.

The screen flickered between documents, words scrolling by quickly and images appeared and disappeared every second. Dark watched with a neutral expression, having seen this many times before, and quietly texted the others that they had found the computer. He only perked his head back up after Anti made an odd hum.

“There’s somethin’... different.” The glitchy ego frowned as the documents slowed down when he started concentrating more.

“What is it?” Dark asked as he stepped closer to the monitor to try to see for himself.

“I don’t think I’ve seen somethin’ like this be-“ Anti stopped midsentence and froze in place, screen still changing, and Dark frowned.

“Anti?”

Suddenly the lights shut off, surrounding them in darkness, and Anti let out a strangled cry as the monitor turned black and shut off itself after making a loud electrical buzz. Dark watched as Anti jerked back from the computer, moving his hand away like it had been burned as he fell over on the desk, nearly falling off. The older being quickly wrapped an arm around him to keep him steady, eyes squinting in the darkness, and noticed that the younger’s form was glitching more than usual. He quickly used his other hand to hold up Anti’s legs, silently cursing the fact that they didn’t bring their earpieces, mainly because they didn’t think they would need it, and fiddled around with his phone he had put back into his pocket to call Wilford.

“Oh, Dark, I was just thinking about what movie we can watch after this!” Came the cheerful reply when he picked up.

“Not now; something happened to Anti.” Dark replied, phone pressed against his cheek.

“Oh? What happened?” There was shuffling coming from his end and Dark guessed he was started to walk quickly.

“Not sure; Google might be able to tell. It happened after he hacked into the computer.”

“Are you two going to make it back to the manor?”

Dark had thought about that, and though he could take Anti with him when he traveled through the shadows, he didn’t know if it would be safe with the state the glitchy being was currently in. On the other hand, they were quite a ways away from being able to make it there by foot and Anti needed to be seen as soon as possible in case this was something serious.

“You take Google and head back to the manor first and get Dr. Iplier and Schneeplestein.” He said instead and heard a hum on the other end.

After the call ended, Dark put his phone away and repositioned the younger ego in his arms as he quickly left the room, choosing to leave the building itself first before he traveled back to the manor. He tried to get Anti to respond to him, finding he was in an odd unconscious state, and frowned when the ego wouldn’t make a sound, eyes closed and body flickering like a hologram.

They made it outside, Dark looking up at the starry sky about with a frown, then turned back towards the man in his arms who still hasn’t moved. He let out a small breath and held the younger closer to his chest, feeling the darkness surround them as he took them back to the manor.

…

Anti woke up with a start, wanting to shout something, but nothing came out. He felt his throat buzz with his voice like usual, but the only sound he heard was a broken hum. He first noticed that he was laying on the bed in the medical room at his home. Henrik wasn’t anywhere to be seen but Dark was sitting in a chair next to the bed, arms crossed and eyes closed as his head leaned against the wall. Anti moved to sit up, wanting to use his hands to push himself up, but paused when he couldn’t feel his right arm. He frowned and looked over at his arm, seeing that it was there but had dark green lines like geometrical veins starting from his hand and rising up to his shoulder. He found that he wasn’t wearing a shirt and the lines continued onto his chest, fading away when it reached his left side and stopped at his stomach. He frowned, mind working quickly as he tried to figure out what happened, and he hesitantly reached up with his left hand to touch his face, feeling his left cheek which seemed fine but as he moved to the right, he winced and felt a stinging sensation as his vision blurred.

He made a startled sound, confused and starting to panic, and that woke Dark up from his spot on the chair. The older being blinked his eyes open, grumbling a bit, but as soon as he noticed that Anti was awake, he quickly stood up and walked over to the bed.

“Anti.” He said, half relieved and half worried. “How do you feel?”

The glitchy being tried to respond, but still no recognizable sounds came out and the older ego hummed.

“Can you move your hand at least?” The older being asked and Anti gave him a thumbs up with his left hand. “Okay, then do that, so how do you feel?”

Anti frowned and gave a thumbs down, then gestured to the right side of his face and made a confused gesture with his palm up. Dark seemed to think for a moment before he walked over to the other side of the room and searched through a drawer to pull out a small handheld mirror, bringing it over to the younger ego. The younger grabbed it with his good hand, holding it up in front of himself and his eyes widened when he saw the dark green lines rising up from his neck onto the right side of his face, touching his eye while instead of white, the eye was black. He noticed that his hair looked different as well, having streaks of lighter colors and almost fading out once in a while. He had a blanket covering his legs and he quickly threw it off of him, seeing that his pants were gone, though he still had his boxers, and didn’t see any of the lines, but his left leg looked see-through and he could see coding like blood. He hesitantly reached his hand out to his leg, hovering over it as he was visibly afraid, and barely touched his leg before he shuddered and made another muffled groan, his entire form flickering and stinging as his coding shifted around.

Dark quickly grabbed his hand and moved it away from his leg, moving it back to his side as he pushed the younger ego to lay down in the bed again. However, Anti noticed that his middle and ring fingers now had the dark green lines on them, stopping before they reached his palm, but there none the less.

“You need to stay still and rest.” The older said sadly as he moved the blanket back over the other. “I’m going to go get the doctors and tell them you’re awake.”

Dark turned and left after that, leaving Anti alone for a few minutes, but soon enough both of the doctors entered the room with Dark and surprisingly JJ following behind.

“Anti, how are you feeling?” Henrik asked right away as he stepped up to the bed first and looked at the dark green lines that he could see without moving the blanket.

Anti gave another thumbs down with a frown and the doctor sighed.

“Dark told us what happened when you woke up, so it seems your voice has been corrupted as well.” Henrik hummed and Anti knit his eyebrows in confusion, so the doctor began to elaborate. “The computer you hacked into had a virus, and though I know you usually notice those and they’ve never been a problem before, this one was different and managed to directly attack your coding. However, it’s… difficult to get an exact diagnosis with you; we’ve never been able to understand how you function in the first place, so it’s hard for us to figure out what’s wrong and how to fix it. We had Google try to scan you, but we can only do so much with that since Google’s system works to get rid of what it classifies as harmful programs and you’re… you know…”

Anti rolled his eyes and grumbled. He’s a glitch, he could be called a virus himself, he knows. That’s why he doesn’t mess around too much with Google; the two of them might accidentally hurt one another if they were too careless.

“What we were able to find out was that the virus seemed to attack your coding in a way that it corrupted it, and seeing as that is how your form is created, it’s visible with your appearance. When you were first brought here, the corruption was only on your hand, but it spread as time went on. It’s stopped spreading for a while now, though, and we believe you should be fine, especially because you’ve woken up now, so that must mean your body has been able to repair itself at least a little bit. You do still need to rest, though. We don’t know if the virus is still there or if the spreading will return or if there’s something we haven’t caught yet.”

Anti made a bunch of gestures that looked odd since he could only use one hand and the others turned to JJ.

 _”He wants to know how long he’s been unconscious and how long he has to stay in bed.”_ JJ signed.

Oh, so that’s why JJ was here. He was familiar in the ways of speaking without using sound. Maybe he could read lips too?

“You’ve been here for a few days, not too long though. As of how long you’ll need to rest, we really can’t say for sure. Dark told us that your form glitched just by touching a corrupted area and it spread to your fingers too. Obviously you still need to heal. You’ll most likely need to stay under someone’s care until the corruption has gone away, and even then, we’ll need to find a way to scan you properly to see if the virus is completely gone or still a threat.”

Anti’s frown only deepened. He wanted to protest, but without his voice there wasn’t much he could do. He didn’t like sitting around doing nothing and he especially didn’t like doing it against his will. Seeing as he couldn’t move two of his limbs, though, he only let out a heavy sigh and turned his head to the side so he wasn’t looking at the others in the room. It’s not like his right eye was working that well anyway.

The four of them stayed as Henrik and Edward explained more of what they knew, explaining it how Google described it as well in computer terms. Once they said all they could, the two doctors did another check up to see how Anti was doing compared to before, then Anti was left alone with just Dark once more. The older being gave him a reassuring smile, though it was easy to see he was tired, and sat back down on the chair like before with a pile of papers on his lap.

…

The first few days weren’t too bad; Anti slept most of the time so he wasn’t awake to complain or realize how much time he spent laying in that bed anyway. Most of the time Dark brought his work into the room to sit with him, and though most people would find that sweet or heartwarming, it made Anti fidgety.

This was the opposite of what he liked. He didn’t feel needed anymore; he felt _useless_. Like a burden. In this state, he wasn’t any help. Henrik and Edward both spent a lot of their time checking on him and they tried to learn more about his condition to help him. Google would visit with them once in a while as well, giving them his input and doing what he could as an ego who is somewhat similar. Dark was affected the most out of this, though. Most nights he didn’t sleep in the bedroom and Anti could tell that chair wasn’t too comfortable. His face was looking more and more tired, he was losing focus on his work more, and he wasn’t even working in his office. Anti didn’t have his voice back yet and he really didn’t want to try to argue with the older ego about it, knowing he would lose in the state he was in, and that only irritated him more.

He wasn’t supposed to be the one that people had to look after.

He would get visits from the other egos from time to time. Wilford brought him a coloring book once, claiming that coloring could help him feel better and it’d give him something to do. He’d check on Dark when he visited as well, teasing the other for staying in the room to look after the younger ego, and though Wil would laugh, Anti would only frown more.

He didn’t need to be taken care of.

Later, he learned that Google and a few others returned to the building where the mission took place and found the source of the virus, being sure to take extra precautions, and Google was able to get a good understanding of it. The doctors and android then worked together to make something that would be compatible with Anti and help him recover. The glitchy ego was making a small recover on his own, but it was slow and he still wasn’t able to talk or move his two limbs. The dark green lines were beginning to fade, though, and he didn’t feel as uncomfortable.

Eventually Henrik walked into the room with a tablet, handing it to Anti and explained that the only thing on it was a program that should help fight the virus without hurting any of Anti’s own coding. The glitchy ego pursed his lips but placed his hand on the tablet’s screen anyway as he found the file and added it to his system. As weird as it was, it was the easiest way to add things to his coding. His body didn’t work the same way for normal medicine to be of use anyway.

He fell asleep shortly afterwards, and when he woke up, his leg was back to normal. He smiled at that and looked up to see that he was alone in the room, Dark probably working on something that he couldn’t do in the room. He looked down as his chest, seeing that was back to normal as well, though his arm still had the dark green lines and when he picked up the mirror that was to the side, his cheek still had the lines as well with his eye still black. He was able to lift up his right arm, though, and he was immediately happy with that.

He hated being here, stuck in a room unable to do anything for himself. It made him feel weak; he wasn’t _weak_. He needed to get out of here, needing some time to be by himself, truly by himself, and closed his eyes as he channeled his energy to see if he could teleport. He felt the familiar warmth of his energy, electric and lively under his skin, and left the manor without a trace.

…

It was night out when Anti left. Most of the humans were off the streets and sleeping, giving Anti a sense of peace as he wandered around outside. He still couldn’t do much with his arm and he could still feel that strange buzzing from the “corruption” as Henrik put it, but he was very grateful to be back in the fresh air and stretch his legs. He took long steps, exaggerating the movements as he stuck his hands in his pockets (as he just barely remembered to grab clothes before going outside).

It was starting to get cold, though, and that didn’t make sense to him since he usually didn’t get cold like that. He sighed to himself, not wanting to admit that it probably wasn’t the best idea to leave the manor the moment he was doing a little better. He probably needed to rest more, hell, maybe if he stayed in bed, he could’ve been completely cured. He didn’t want to think about that now. He’ll just be careful and he can go back to the manor later; maybe he could sleep in his normal bed again.

For now, he wanted to be by himself, so he went to one of his safe spots. It was an old building where arcade games and other devices like that were stored at and usually didn’t have many people there to disturb him. He had spent many days playing around with the arcade games there, intentionally making them glitch out to watch how the game would try to function with it, and he had fun cheating on them too. He didn’t feel the same mischievous glimmer like he usually did when he walked into the building, though, and only sighed as he walked over to the back of the room where a large cushion was propped up against two arcade machines. He plopped down on it, legs stretched out in front of him as he swayed his feet back and forth, and leaned against the machines.

He held his right arm in front of himself, glaring at the green lines still there, and let out a heavy sigh as he flicked his wrist and watched his arm change into its coding form. It still looked like an arm and all, but it looked more like something a person would see on a monitor with numbers and strange symbols, changing its color as well. This is something Henrik and Edward wouldn’t understand; it’s the world of coding. He could see the thing that they called “corruption”, seeing how his code was altered because of it, and mumbled to himself as he tampered with it. He huffed a short laugh when he pictured a technician working on their own mechanical arm. Google would probably flip if he saw what went on under his human appearance. He was able to get a bit of his coding back on track, though.

See, he could take care of himself just fine.

He changed his arm back to normal and closed his eyes after that, resting his head back and listened to the soft buzzing of the devices that were on. There was a clock that would make a soft tick every second and Anti used it as a metronome as he felt his mind drift off into sleep.

So he slept.

And woke up with a sharp pain in his right arm. He jerked forward, eyes snapping open and looked to his right to see his arm glitching in place.

Wait, wasn’t he done with this? Was he getting worse?

He then heard a loud crackle and jumped slightly when the arcade machine on his right side turned on then fizzled out as smoke puffed out from the side. He quickly stood up and looked at the screen of the machine to see it stuck on a broken image, flickering on and off, then winced as it sparked and stung his arm as well.

Shit, he was still “sick”. His abilities weren’t fully under his control yet either. This wasn’t good. Another spark from the machine caused him to recoil and he went to teleport out of the building only to have a wave of irritation course through him as he stumbled backwards a bit.

Shit. Not good. He probably shouldn't have gone to a place that was filled with electronics, especially ones that he's messed with before, when he was having issues with his own techy skills. He didn’t have his phone with him either. How was he going to get back home? The sparking spread to the next arcade machine, starting a slow chain reaction, and Anti wasted no more time there as he staggered over to the exit, feeling his left leg start to hurt again through it all. He made it outside, seeing it was early morning, just before sunrise, and tried to hide his limp as he went to find a new place to rest.

Before he could get too far, though he didn’t really have a plan to begin with, there was an arm suddenly wrapping around him as he was pulled closer to a person. There was a familiar darkness from shadows then Anti found he was suddenly in Dark’s room with the older ego bringing him over to the bed. He was set down onto the mattress, propped up against a pillow, and he growled lowly on instinct.

“I can take care of myself.” He glared at the older as his voice glitched out of place, but at least understandable this time.

Dark sighed and moved the blanket out from under him to lay it over him.

“You made the others worried when we found you had left.”

“Well they shouldn’t have. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself, I don’t need to be babied and stuck in bed all day.”

Dark gave him a look that almost made him want to turn away, but he kept eye contact out of sheer stubbornness. The older ego looked almost mad, _almost_ , but sighed as though he had to explain something blatantly obvious.

“Being hurt doesn’t make you weak. Needing help doesn’t make you any less capable.”

Anti grumbled quietly, finally breaking eye contact, and Dark moved to sit over on the other side of the bed, propped up against the headboard.

“Remember when Chase drank too much and you told me you couldn’t stay at the manor for a while because you had to look after him?” Dark asked and earned a small huff from the younger.

“All of us gave up drinking for a while after that just to make sure he couldn’t get his hands on any more so he could recover properly.”

“And remember when Wil got shot in the arm and couldn’t use his right hand until it healed?”

“So we all started using our left hands with him and all of our handwriting was terrible.” Anti huffed, small smiling beginning to form.

“And you know Google has had to deal with viruses before.”

“Yeah, I remember that. He kept hearing the wrong things and said stuff seemingly out of nowhere.”

“And I’m sure you remember the mission at the winter forest.”

“Your foot! You couldn’t walk for days after that! Aha that was great.” Anti grinned.

“And do you think of us any differently because of those?”

“No.” The younger frowned, understanding what this was for now.

Dark quirked an eyebrow up with an expectant expression, making the younger roll his eyes and lay down more on the bed, grabbing the pillow and hiding his face in it as he made himself comfortable on his stomach in a comfortable bed for once.

“Fine, whatever, I get it.” He grumbled and felt Dark put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m gonna sleep, you should go do whatever work I know is piling up at your desk by now.”

“You underestimate me.”

Anti huffed into the pillow, head turning to the side to look at the other.

“Of course, the intimidating Darky’s reputation for getting his work done shall never be tainted.” He said and heard Dark grumble something but pat his shoulder softly.

It was quiet for a while after that, Dark sitting on the bed and Anti almost felt himself fall asleep completely.

“Your voice sounds like Wil’s old mp3 player when he dropped it in the pool.” Dark mentioned casually.

Anti flipped him off.

**Author's Note:**

> Dark found him because he knows about the arcade that Anti visited- realized I didn't put that in.
> 
> Got a request? Comment down below and I'll see what I can do! Don't worry, I'm friendly, and you may request more than once! However, now that college is back I might need some time to write :3
> 
> [My tumblr :3](https://galaxykitty42.tumblr.com/)


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